That the USA has twice the miles of track per ton of freight is indicative of the problem.

The solution is axing the 50% of track that's deeply underutilized and electrifying the rest, with batteries for the bits that are expensive to wire up like legacy bridges and tunnels. It's not rocket science.

The CEOs aren't against the only rational approach because innovation is going to change that, but because their corporate structure and metrics aren't aligned with where the freight industry is going rapidly. Far too quarterly report driven, far too narrow operational optimization oriented, missing the big picture.

When 4 million coal cars and 70,000 oil cars disappear from tracks over the next 30 years, while a lot more freight moves to electric and autonomous road trucks, the US rail industry will be in paroxysms of pain that they could have avoided.

But for a brief, shining moment in time, they will have delivered good quarterly profit reports.